Redesigner finds new identity for home castoffs

Sunday

Mar 1, 2009 at 12:01 AM

Pam Hartz Miller says her family made fun of her when she took an old seed cabinet from the family hardware store that her father ran in Deposit, N.Y. The store, Ed Hartz and Sons, has been in the family for five generations, and the seed cabinet was a wreck.

Nancy Schoeffler

Pam Hartz Miller says her family made fun of her when she took an old seed cabinet from the family hardware store that her father ran in Deposit, N.Y. The store, Ed Hartz and Sons, has been in the family for five generations, and the seed cabinet was a wreck.

"The backs of the drawers were chewed up from mice, and it was painted a mustard gold," she says.

Hartz Miller and her husband, Jim Miller, transformed the oak cabinet, with its slanted bank of windowed drawers, into a distinctive kitchen island.

Her family isn't teasing her anymore.

"Now they all want it!"

Hartz Miller, who once designed window displays at the hardware store, sees new identities hidden in castoff items, flea market buys and roadside finds — second careers for old furniture.

She created an unusual settee from an old bed with a spool-style headboard.

"It really wasn't that sturdy as a bed," Hartz Miller says.

Her husband transformed another spool bed into a desk for their sons' bedroom.

Jim Miller remembers his grandmother making cookies at the old Hoosier baking cabinet that's now in their kitchen in Middletown, Conn. It has a built-in flour sifter, original instructions on weights and measures and a deep bread drawer. But these days, the cupboard is a wine cabinet.

In the same vein, an old typesetters' drawer serves as a coffee table, and Hartz Miller transformed a CD rack made from dowels into a hand-stenciled display rack for the quilts she makes.

Hartz Miller has woven pillows from neckties, framed a mirror with a Victrola cover and turned discarded wooden shutters plus the arm rests of a broken rocking chair into a one-of-a-kind headboard. The base of an unusual table lamp she and her husband made is encircled with antique thread bobbins.

Sometimes Jim has to "temper me," Hartz Miller says. "He'll say, 'This is something you found by the side of the road. Why are you putting so much time into it?'"

She smiles. It's her nature. An old chamber pot works for a houseplant. An antique shoe form makes a charming candleholder.

The creative way Hartz Miller uses things in her home echoes the work she does in her part-time business as an interior "redesigner" — bringing a fresh eye to clients' homes and finding new uses and contexts for the things they have.

"I love this kind of decorating because I think it's less intimidating. I'm not going to judge their stuff. They have collections, and that's what makes their home personal," she says. "It's their style. I just find ways it can be arranged better, so that it functions better. And they didn't have to buy anything new."

Hartz Miller, who started her Hartz & Homes room-styling business about six years ago, previously worked as a graphic designer. She realized she was always shifting her own furniture around and helping friends decorate for parties. She studied at New York School of Interior Design and launched a traditional interior-design business.

"I hated it," she says. "I hated picking custom wallpapers and window treatments for thousands of dollars. I thought, this isn't the way I decorate."

A book she read by interior redesign pioneer Lauri Ward of Use What You Have Interiors struck a chord. Hartz Miller trained with JoAnne Lenart-Weary, who popularized "one-day decorating."

After a redesign, which runs $300 (consultations are $75 an hour), Hartz Miller says she will leave clients with a list of what they might want to get — almost always a lamp.

"Most people need more light," she says.

And she's a big proponent of grouping a collection rather than scattering it around the house, piecemeal.

"For me, I think you see it better when it's all together."

Hartz Miller recently launched a new service, Mantel in a Box, to help people assemble attractive mantel displays of collectibles for each season.

"I change my mantels once a month," Hartz Miller says. "We live in an area with four distinct seasons, so you ought to at least change it four times.

"It's good to change," she adds. "It gives you a little lift to change things around."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.